PAI Partners Said to Discuss Hiring Investment Bankers for Yoplait Sale
PAI Partners, a French private equity firm, plans to hire investment banks to help sell its 50 percent stake in Yoplait yogurt, two people with knowledge of the discussions said.
The sale process may start in September and value the company at about 1.2 billion euros ($1.5 billion), said the people, who declined to be identified as the matter is private. PAI is interviewing about nine banks this week, the people said.
PAI, which manages a 2.7 billion-euro fund, is considering selling its stake after jointly owning the Boulogne-Billancourt, France-based yogurt maker since 2002. Sodiaal, France’s largest milk cooperative, holds the other 50 percent. Leveraged buyout fund managers are seeking to return cash to investors after the credit crisis stymied deal-making for two years.
Yoplait, which has manufacturing facilities in France and operates internationally through a franchise network, has earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of about 120 million euros, another person said. General Mills Inc. distributes Yoplait products in the U.S.
A sale agreement may not be reached before 2011, one of the people said.
The nine banks trying to get hired include Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., BNP Paribas SA, Lazard Ltd., Rothschild and Societe Generale SA, people said.
A spokesman for PAI declined to comment.
To contact the reporter on this story: Anne-Sylvaine Chassany in Paris at achassany@bloomberg.net; Jacqueline Simmons in Paris at jackiem@bloomberg.net.
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